Pumping Blood- NONONO

Percy

"Order ten shipments of the RK skateboards, and twelve of the Kendall wetsuit collections."

"Sure thing, boss." Grover saluted me and started to walk out of the double doors in my office before he froze and turned around.

"Wait, I forgot to mention. Did you ever talk to that David guy about his internship program? I left his number on your desk."

"What internship program?"

He sunk into a chair and tapped the edge. "Thompson Architecture has an internship program planned for November thru June. They're hiring some students from San Francisco to come down and do projects, and they're looking for places that are trying to expand. They'd be cheap to hire."

"Yeah, sure, but what would we even use them for?"

"The warehouse we'd been talking about."

I rubbed my temple, leaning onto my desk. It'd been a long day and I was ready to go home.

"I don't know, Grover. We've only been talking about that for a little bit. Would they even be any good?"

"They're all seniors, and I've seen the applications. They're really good."

With a long breath out, I nodded. "If you'd supervise everything, I'd do it.

He smiled and shouted as he was walking out, "I will. This is gonna be a good thing, Percy. I can feel it!"

With a laugh, I looked back down at my papers filled with stock information and product sales. It'd been a good year. We'd opened three new stores, totaling us at seven storefronts. We had great business, and our customers loved us. I was swimming in money and could have anything I wanted.

But something was missing.

It'd been seven years. Seven years since I'd left Manhattan for Hawaii, and seven years since Annabeth and I had ended. I'd never known what happened. It'd been so quick. A note, and it was over. I thought about it all the time.

She'd never tried to contact me, though, and ignored my attempts. She obviously hadn't loved me, and I'd had to accept that.

"Mr. Jackson?" My assistant's voice rang through the intercom. "Miss. Dare is here to see you."

I smiled and hit the TALK button. "Send her up, Calypso."

I needed a distraction again.

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Annabeth's POV

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I really needed a distraction.

It was 7:00 on a Thursday, and I'd been pouring over blueprints and graphs for the past six hours. My lunch had been delayed, because my 'partner' had failed miserably at drawing up a blueprint for the animal shelter we were working on. So while he was home, I was at the office correcting his mistakes.

"Delivery for Miss. Chase."

Without a glance, I knew who it was.

"I love you, I love you, I love you."

Luke laughed and set the box of pizza on the desk by the door. He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, kissing the side of my head.

"Have I ever told you how sexy you are in work clothes?"

I smiled and nodded, drawing out a line on the paper in front of me.

"Just let me finish this window and I'll take a break." I promised. Luke nodded but stayed against me.

"How's it coming?"

I groaned. "Fine, I guess. I should've just done the project myself and save some time, though."

"Hey, you didn't know your partner was a douche."

"Yeah… Jeremy is something."

With a laugh, he said, "Something that's kept you out until dark."

"Is that why you're here?"

He stepped back. "Actually, Hazel called me."

I turned around. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah.." Luke walked over to the box of pizza and pulled out a slice. "Kennedy's running a fever. Nothing bad, she just wanted me to come over and make sure you finished what you were doing before you came home."

"No, I need to go now."

"Annabeth-"

"My daughter's sick, Luke."

He shook his head. "It's just a fever, Annabeth. Kids get them all the time. What's important right now is that you ace your final, and you're not going to be able to if you're home."

Without letting me say anything he added, "Hazel knows what she's doing. Plus, Jason is coming over."

Jason was a kids gymnastics instructor at night, and he was incredible with kids. I mean, so was Hazel, but Jason knew Kennedy better. She took two classes a week with him.

"Okay." I said, calming myself down. "Okay, I'm going to finish this soon anyway."

Luke smiled. "See? No big deal."

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"Oh my god, puking? Why didn't you tell me?"

I stood in the living room of my apartment, throwing my coat and purse onto the couch. Hazel, Jason, and Luke looked at each other, as if trying to figure out what to say.

"Annabeth, your project was important."

"Yeah, so is my daughter."

"But we can take care of her. We can't do your project for you."

"I could've finished it tomorrow." I hissed, trying to keep my voice down. "Listen, I appreciate why you did it, but I should've been here."

They nodded and grudgingly grabbed their things after telling me what medicine they'd given her.

"Thanks, you guys." I added before Hazel and Jason left. Luke stood by the door, pulling on his jacket.

"You sure you don't need me to stay to help?" He asked. I knew that even if I asked, he would've made some excuse to leave. He hated kids.

"No," I lied. "I'm fine."

After he left, I walked into Kennedy's bedroom as quietly as I could. She was laying on her bed, eyes closed and hair pushed back. I leaned down and kissed her forehead, which was hot.

"Poor baby." I whispered, running my fingers through her long, blonde hair. Her eyes were closed, and I was thankful. I loved her, everything about her, but when she opened her eyes and looked at me, I was reminded time and time again of what I walked away from.

I knew Percy would've married me. He would've fixed everything and been a perfect dad. We would've lived in a house out of the city and lived happily ever after.

But he had so much more in a life without her.

I also knew he would've given up everything to make us happy, and I couldn't have lived with that. I just couldn't.

So I made a new life without him. It was hard, but my dad and his family helped. We'd lived with them for three years before I'd moved us into a apartment a few blocks away from her daycare and a few miles away from USF, where I took my classes. I met Luke the year before and we hit it off. The rest was history.

Despite everything though, I wasn't happy. I wasn't happy in San Francisco. I missed my friends in New York. I missed my old carefree life.

I missed him. That was my biggest worry about going back for the internship. It would only be a matter of time before we ran into each other and before he found out. Then, he'd be back in my life and I'd have to live the rest of my life seeing him with someone else.

I didn't think I could deal with that. I just couldn't.

A/N.

So I made this chapter longer, and I'm going to be trying to do that with every chapter! My goal is to have them between 2,000 and 4,000 words each, but it's difficult to do that until the "action" starts, which will be in 1 or 2 chapters.

I'm going to start posting regular chapters every Monday and Friday. If I can't make the deadline, I'll post something on either the story, or my Instagram profile. Speaking of…

Instagram and Twitter! Follow me guys! My name's icywriter098 on both, and I could really use some followers! Follow me and I'll follow back! It's really important for you guys to use those social media pages for this story, because I'll be posting sneak peeks, insider info, photos of the stories, and more! So check it out!

-Icy